Ideas to quite down an mep 005

[Philratcliffe]

Hi guys I’m looking at ways to quiet down my mep005s as much as possible. I use them 24/7 to power my island hotel. Noise at night is a huge problem.
I just built a 8ft block sound wall to deflect some of the noise and am
Almost finished a block generator building in which all 4 of my 005s reside. It has plastic polycarbonate roof panels and I will install two inch thick styrofoam panels underneath the roof panels for sound deadening
I also plan to build a wooden baffled air box that will mount on top of the caged oem air filter and have two 3” pvc intake tubes feed it from out side the generator bulding.
I will run an exhaust tube out side the building and have a secondary muffler there and the tailpipe will feed into a 55 gallon drum filled with conch shells and seawater
I will also mount the radiator out side the building so I can totally seal the generator sound enclosure, I will run two 24 radiator fans 1 push and 1 pull for redundancy.
I will divide the internal space of the generator into two halves using plywood and will use two 24v bilge blowers to extract hot air from each half to keep it as cool as possible. I will measure the inside temps before and after the modifications just to make sure I don’t create heat related problems. The generator sits on 8 rubber pads and they sit on 2x8s of pine and they sit on the cement floor of the building.
I am also consodering making a large plywood box in two halves with a thin sheet of lead attached to foam and a thin plastic skin for outside the box and the fiberglass ac duct material with the alum foil on one side for inside the box. It will have a plexiglass window where the control panel is located so I can monitor the gauges on the generator.
The quieter I can make these the more rooms I can build in this part of the property is the reason im
Going to such great lengths to silence them.
Please point out any of my ideas that you think might cause me problems going forward.
Thanks in advance for any feedback guys!

 

[Guyfang]

If you restrict the exhaust in any way, you will soon have not just wet stacking, but a black, oozy crap will begin to leak out of the exhaust that will stain anything it touches.

 

[Coug]

These things require a huge amount of air movement to keep them cooled. I'd be worried that putting them inside an enclosure of any type would severely hamper their cooling ability. At minimum I would advise adding some really big fans to push air into the building down low at both ends, and more fans up high to pull all the heat out. Like thousands of cubic feet of air movement type fans.
I've seen the end results of civilian standby generators run in too small of spaces or insufficient airflow and moderate loads on them, and it gets expensive quickly.

 

[Philratcliffe]

If you restrict the exhaust in any way, you will soon have not just wet stacking, but a black, oozy crap will begin to leak out of the exhaust that will stain anything it touches.

So even a secondary muffler would cause it to wet stack? Thanks

 

[Philratcliffe]

These things require a huge amount of air movement to keep them cooled. I'd be worried that putting them inside an enclosure of any type would severely hamper their cooling ability. At minimum I would advise adding some really big fans to push air into the building down low at both ends, and more fans up high to pull all the heat out. Like thousands of cubic feet of air movement type fans.
I've seen the end results of civilian standby generators run in too small of spaces or insufficient airflow and moderate loads on them, and it gets expensive quickly.

I was planning to move the radiator outside and cool it with electric push and pull 24 valor fans

 

[Coug]

I was planning to move the radiator outside and cool it with electric push and pull 24 valor fans

There is still going to be a lot of ambient heat around the units, and the radiator only cools the engine. The way the enclosure for the generator is designed is that it pulls cool air across the generator head, then the engine area, pulling out a lot of the radiant heat from the exhaust headers, muffler, and whatnot.
Without sealing up the area where the radiator was and providing the room with sufficient cool air the radiant heat will build up to the point that electrical wire insulation starts to melt, components and wires short out, and just general destruction of the unit.
Not saying that happens with every unit, and running a single one inside of a room with ventilation would probably be fine, but if you have 4 of them up and running at once, that's going to be a LOT of radiated heat with nowhere to go.

 

[Philratcliffe]

There is still going to be a lot of ambient heat around the units, and the radiator only cools the engine. The way the enclosure for the generator is designed is that it pulls cool air across the generator head, then the engine area, pulling out a lot of the radiant heat from the exhaust headers, muffler, and whatnot.
Without sealing up the area where the radiator was and providing the room with sufficient cool air the radiant heat will build up to the point that electrical wire insulation starts to melt, components and wires short out, and just general destruction of the unit.
Not saying that happens with every unit, and running a single one inside of a room with ventilation would probably be fine, but if you have 4 of them up and running at once, that's going to be a LOT of radiated heat with nowhere to go.

No i will only be running one at a time execept a few days a month when I’m running a second 005 to power my rowpu for a few hours in the day time. The building has lots of windows for days when my mechanic and I will be working one them The one I want to really quiet down is the unit I will run at night. I can run several boat bilge blowers to change the air inside the units. I will monitor ambient air temps inside the units. These things as I understand were designed to be run in the hottest desert type environment so I should be able to get it cool enough to live. Three 4” bilge blowers and insulated 4” ac duct hose is how I plant to move the air, one for the generator head and two for the engine area. My generator building is 65’x26’ so it’s a pretty good sized structure .
I was also thinking withbthe radiator out side the building if I can keep it cool enough inside I could use the engine driven rad fad to cool inside the unit but build a baffled exhaust box that attaches to the radiator outlet grate made ofn1/2” plywood. I will experiment with it
On the exhaust issue guyfang mentioned I think if i step up to 4” exhaust tubing and flow thru glasspack type construction it will soften the exhaust hum just enough. Thanks for the input

 

[Philratcliffe]

There is still going to be a lot of ambient heat around the units, and the radiator only cools the engine. The way the enclosure for the generator is designed is that it pulls cool air across the generator head, then the engine area, pulling out a lot of the radiant heat from the exhaust headers, muffler, and whatnot.
Without sealing up the area where the radiator was and providing the room with sufficient cool air the radiant heat will build up to the point that electrical wire insulation starts to melt, components and wires short out, and just general destruction of the unit.
Not saying that happens with every unit, and running a single one inside of a room with ventilation would probably be fine, but if you have 4 of them up and running at once, that's going to be a LOT of radiated heat with nowhere to go.

I will try running it with the building closed up and will plumb the exhaust outside and the intake air as well. If it gets too hot in the building overnight, I will run the radiator out side and just use the engine driven fan to pull air thru the unit to cool the generator head and exhaust manifold and muffler etc.

 

[Coug]

a 65'x26' building is a lot more than I expected for your generators, so I think the ambient air temp inside the building will be a lot less of an issue. Will still need some airflow for safety reasons (exhaust leaks and fuel vapors [not as big of an issue with diesel, but still not good])

When I first read it I imagined a building large enough to fit the 4 generators with maybe 4-5 feet around each of them for access, and then all 4 of them might be running at times.

Just stepping up to the 4" exhaust, then piping it for a distance might be enough to diffuse the tone a bit more, and you can always run the exhaust pipe parallel to the roof and put walls/barriers on either side of it with some sound deadening materials to lower it further.

 

[Guyfang]

We tried it, and thats what happened to me. The Germans paid thousands to hook up a secondary muffler. All for nothing.

 

[kavesman1]

If you want to quiet down the sound, I'd first seal any panels/joints/doors on the genset itself. I redid the seals on the doors on my 803A, and it made a noticeable difference in the noise coming from it...around 5-7db at 10-15ft from the genset. After that, I'd look into CLD tiles and Mass Loaded Vinyl sheets. The CLD tiles are used to dampen the standing wave noise from the panels themselves, and a layer of MLV sheets absorb the sound when in the air due to the sand that is in it. But you'll need to isolate the MLV sheets from any hard panel, so i'd use a closed cell foam to attach the MLV sheets to the genset. And the CLD tiles directly attach to the panels.

 

[Chainbreaker]

Looking at it from another angle...

1. Do your hotel guests sleep with windows open at night or run AC with windows closed?

2. Are the rooms in one attached structure or individual units spread out?

3. Where is your generator building in proximity to your guest quarters? Distance? Elevated above or below or at same elevation?

4. Any chance you can build a tall berm of sorts or erect a sound deadening wall between generator building & guest quarters?

5. What is construction of guest quarters? Concrete block, wood or...? Any insulation or curtains?

There may be sound attenuation solutions available to implement from "both ends" to get optimum results.

Of course, you could provide complimentary ear plugs for the ultra-light sleepers that might complain.

Me personally...the hum of constant speed generator would probably lull me to sleep, especially if I was a guest who indulged in a shot or two of the local spirits before bedtime. At least that seemed to be the remedy on live-aboard dive boat trips when waves were rocking the boat late evening and the genset was still purring away.

 

[Guyfang]

I used to sleep on top of my running generators. Maybe I am like the baby who goes to sleep on the running dryer, but the sound always put me out in less then 60 seconds. There may be a coralation between my severe hearing loss and practices such as this. But the sound of a running gen set is a sleep potion to me.

 

[Philratcliffe]

I used to sleep on top of my running generators. Maybe I am like the baby who goes to sleep on the running dryer, but the sound always put me out in less then 60 seconds. There may be a coralation between my severe hearing loss and practices such as this. But the sound of a running gen set is a sleep potion to me.

Lol me too. I’ve slept with the 002s running 24/7 for just under five years. The 005s are much quieter I too have a hearing loss so have to go by what my friends tell me

 

[Philratcliffe]

Looking at it from another angle...

1. Do your hotel guests sleep with windows open at night or run AC with windows closed?

2. Are the rooms in one attached structure or individual units spread out?

3. Where is your generator building in proximity to your guest quarters? Distance? Elevated above or below or at same elevation?

4. Any chance you can build a tall berm of sorts or erect a sound deadening wall between generator building & guest quarters?

5. What is construction of guest quarters? Concrete block, wood or...? Any insulation or curtains?

There may be sound attenuation solutions available to implement from "both ends" to get optimum results.

Of course, you could provide complimentary ear plugs for the ultra-light sleepers that might complain.

Me personally...the hum of constant speed generator would probably lull me to sleep, especially if I was a guest who indulged in a shot or two of the local spirits before bedtime. At least that seemed to be the remedy on live-aboard dive boat trips when waves were rocking the boat late evening and the genset was still purring away.

Will the rooms are scattered about, the island is flat no more then a few feet in elevation change that you can barely see with the naked eye. the 4 005s are in a block building that I’m still finishing the work on. It has those cheap polycarbonate roof panels so I’m putting a layer of 2 inch styrofoam under them to absorb sound. I have a 3.5 in exhaust system that will be here in the am. It’s nust to route the exhaust outside the building it has a long straight they glasspack style muffler in it. I don’t think it will create any back pressure due to the diameter and straight thru muffler. The builds ms doos amd windows also have 2” inches of styrofoam in them. I will shut all the doors and windows except one 36x36 window at the rear of the building opposite where the hotel is located. If it gets too hot in the. Yielding I will probably mount the radiator out side with. Two elec fans push/pull for redundancy and leave the original fan to cool the gen head and engine exhaust manifold. Out side the the building there is a 8 foot tall sound wall on three sides. My rooms in that area as little cabins with a palm roof and window screen in all the windows which are open always. The quieter I get the gens the more of the property I can build on. My most expensive beach front bungalows are only about 70 yards from the generator building. I think I will get a few sets of those lil foam ear plugs Incase we do get a complaint. But in the mi th since I switched from the air cooled 002s to the 005s we haven’t had a single complaint but I’m building closer to them now. Thanks for the reply the more food for thought the better. A guy in the islands runs his exhaust pipe into a 55 gallon drum filled with conch shells. To defuse the noise but he has an old lister with no muffler I will give it a try we have tons of large conch shells here

 

[Hard Head]

What about duplicating the ASK kit. Shouldn't be that hard to do if someone has some specs for one.

 

[Philratcliffe]

What about duplicating the ASK kit. Shouldn't be that hard to do if someone has some specs for one.

What is an ask kit. I had one all apart to installs fresh engine so I lined the entire unit with 1/2” styrofoam and it made a diff on engine noise. A lot comes out the radiator. That why I want to close up the building as much as possible at night I will experiment with the set up and think I will reduce the noise enough to make it livable. Thanks I will search for an ask kit

 

[Coug]

ASK = Acoustic Suppression Kit.
Basically some add on or modified components that helped lower the sound output. Below is a pic I found of one with the ASK.

 

[Philratcliffe]

Wow. I saw one like that on eBay but didn’t know what it was. So that just bolts on to any 005? Thanks

 

[Guyfang]

There is more to it then "just bolts on any 005A". If you buy a ASK, and it's not compleat, and most take offs, unless done by someone who cares, might not be compleat. The ASK is quite, but the kit will restrict your ability to do some work on the gen set. Even if the gen set is outside, you need a light to work on it. We had them, installed them and removed them. I always thought they were a PITA. But when installed right, they do work well.